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Month: February 2017

By the time you read this, I’ll be home. I’m not the type of person to broadcast when I’m away from home because I’m not a fan of inviting bad guys to my house to have their way with it, knowing I’m going to be gone for a while. So, at the time of this writing, it’s 2.19.2017, 11:41pm, and I’m at a Holiday Inn Express in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in preparation for the cruise I will be starting tomorrow. (YOU WILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR WHERE BECAUSE IT WILL BE A SURPRISE.)

While I’m not a fan of cruises, I’m going to have a blast on this vacation because most of my favorite family members are going along. My sister (Joy); my niece and nephew, Cheyenne and Cody, the former of which hates people as much as I do; my dad and some of his friends; my uncle Leslie and aunt Fame; and tomorrow, my cousin Christopher and his lady Kaylin will be joining us as we all join the boat like one big family. I’m very much looking forward to it.

It is now 2:32am. I had popped a few Xanax and fell asleep for a bit on these VERY comfortable beds. Shit, for a Holiday Inn Express, I’m pretty goddamn impressed with these beds. However, that insomnia thing I mentioned in the last post? Yeah. Just because I’m taking a vacation doesn’t mean that fuck is.

Anywho, all things considered, this vacation is off to a fine start. I left my house separately from the rest of the family because I live closer to Baltimore, where were flying out off, than anyone else; plus, the cars were all filled up and I couldn’t ride with them if I wanted to. So I gathered up all the various ways I could use to get the airport. After all was said and done, I got it down to about $40 round trip. Rather than arrange with those companies, I offered up the money to a few friends, who took me upon it. And Anne got me to BWI all safe and sound, get this, at about the same time as the rest of my family. They had just gotten in line and I was able to quickly join them.

It’s way late, so I’m just going to knock this out with some bullet points on the highlights:

We were randomly chosen to go through the quick lanes for checkin. This means we could keep our belts and shoes on!

My sister scored a free beer on the plane because I made the flight attendant laugh. Still waiting on that particular thank you.

When I left Maryland, my suitcase had two wheels; when I arrived in Florida, it had one. I went to the Southwest counter, and they took care of the problem RIGHT THEN by giving me a new suitcase. Right. Then. I cannot speak highly enough of the customer service I got from them.

As mentioned, most of my family was going to be on this trip. When we saw Leslie, my uncle, for the first time, he was closing intentionally closing the elevator on us. Those who know Big Les are not surprised by this.

I’ve always had trouble getting a good night’s sleep because of my snoring. But for the past month, it’s gotten far, far worse, where I’ve been waking up about every hour for no reason. I mean, if I had to pee each time I woke up, I’d be worried (that would be fat boy diabetes), but I’m just waking up. As if my body is saying, “HI! Just waking you up for no fucking reason!”

I dick around for 5 or 10 minutes, then go back to sleep, only to wake up again in an hour. So, after all has said and done, I may have gotten three hours a night of sleep a night since this started. Mind you, these aren’t consecutive hours; they’re just three house. Do you know what this does to a person? Let me fucking tell you (in no particular order).

Any reflexes you might have thought you had, well kiss them goodbye. I normally keep a reasonable distance between myself and the vehicle in front of me when driving. I’ve doubled that in the past month. My reflexes have been sloooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwww.

You know the true meaning of insomnia. Late at night on Facebook, without fail, you’ll see at least one post from your friend’s saying they have insomnia. They don’t. They just can’t sleep that night. When you can’t sleep 30 days in a row, you are on an entirely different level. I’m not even judging those folks who are complaining about their “insomnia” because I used to do the same. God, those were the days.

You fall asleep randomly and without realizing it. You know how when you are super tired and you are driving and you say to yourself, “I can shut my eyes for five seconds; I’ll be fine”. And you KNOW that’s crazy. It’s stupid and dangerous and insane, and you know that while you are thinking it. However, when you haven’t had any sort of “night’s sleep” in a month, you don’t get the luxury of thinking you can close your eyes safely for X amount of time. It just happens on its own, and its fucking terrifying. Fortunately, that has only happened twice, and only for a matter of seconds, but it’s no less scary. I now have caffeine pills in my car.

Caffeine pills aren’t all that. But they help somewhat.

Talking becomes a chore. You are so exhausted, forming simple sentences requires a lot of thought. And when that thought is finally ready to become words, those words can be so slurred, people ask if you are drunk. (Yes, this happened to me. A co-worker jokingly said it, but I sounded like I was.)

Your eyes droop. I had no idea this was going on until a co-worker pointed it out.

You lightly hallucinate. That was the moment I knew shit was going bad, when I started seeing things that weren’t there. I’m not talking about shadow people or anything like that. Mostly it’s weird things, like seeing a cup when it’s not really there. This has happened more than once; I’ll reach down for a cup to get a drink that I know is there because I see it out of the corner of my eye (we’ll just ignore that I never got a drink in the first place). It’s only when my fingers grasp at nothing do I realize that that mind was being a dick and was never really there.

My co-workers notice how fucked up I’ve been lately, and demanded I get a sleep study. Keila, my BBFF acted like I was causing a risk to her while she was on the road at the same time as me, but we all know it’s because she cares.

I got my sleep study consultation last week, now I’m just waiting for the insurance company to approve the actual study. I really don’t want for this to be a battle, but I’m prepared for a fight if need be. All I want at this point is 8 hours of blissful sleep, but I’ll settle for 6.

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Genius in 140 Characters

Actual non-joking writing advice: When I do the final proofread of a manuscript, I change the font, so that it looks different and I’m less likely to see what I MEANT to write instead of what I DID write.